Emotional Social and Cognitive Development in Late Childhood

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN LATE CHILDHOOD

Emotional development during late childhood is characterized by few emotional disturbances.

During early childhood there were comparatively more emotional disturbances.

But during late childhood emotional disturbances decrease and there is some increase in emotionality.

Madigan writes, "This is due partly to an excess of energy, resulting from his slow physical growth and partly from social restraints on the child's behaviour.” Thus, it is apparent that slow physical development is partly responsible for the fewer emotional disturbances during later childhood.

The emotional development during later childhood is marked by the presence of pleasant emotions leading to loud laughter and giggles.

When the child feels physically fit he may intensify his laughter.

Though the later childhood period is marked by pleasant emotions nevertheless the emotions of anger, fear and anxiety do appear.

According to Robert Watson, annoyance causes anger during later childhood. It may be mentioned here that annoyance is a form of anger and mild in nature. In the words of Watson, "A derivative of anger annoyance, becomes more prominent in later childhood." But children during later childhood experience the emotion of fear to a great extent.

Studies have shown that fears of all types are present during later childhood

As regards the types of fears during later childhood, A. T. Jersild and his colleagues made a study of four hundred children aged five to twelve years.

It was found the about twenty percent of all types of fears were related to darkness, being alone and imaginary creatures.

Fear of robbers and other criminal characters was about ten percent.

Children during later childhood suffer more from anticipatory or imaginary fear which are actually irrational in nature.

Such things as are of general natural rarely cause fear among childhood

It has been observed that a large number of fears relating to later childhood may continue in latter life.

Jersild & Holmes made a study of the recall by adults of childhood fears. They fond that about 40 percent of these childhood fears were recalled by the adults under study. But, they also pointed out that due to forgetfulness, these adults may not have been able to realize the real nature of some of the fears they experienced during later childhood. Further, these adults reported that they had a fear of animals and that of bodily harm, which may have been caused by near-drowning, fire, illness or even by supernatural forces. Such fears are indicative of insecurity and anxiety during adult life.

During late childhood emotional development is indicated when the child is able to give as much love as he receive.

He may also like to develop friendships with peers.

If the emotional development is satisfactory the child is able to give affection and develop affectionate relationships with his pets; peers and other people around him

During late childhood the child learns to maintain a balance between giving and receiving affection.

By developing friendships with his peers the child may learn to give as much-love and affection as he might receive from his friends

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN LATE CHILDHOOD

During late childhood the child is able to enter the adult world on account of grater physical maturity and learning communication skills.

When the child is about six years old he likes to be independent and eat, dress and bathe himself.

He acquires the ability to get along with other children in the family as in the school

As mentioned in the context of emotional development, friendship is helpful in the social development of children during this period.

These friendships sometimes lead to the formation of gangs. That is why this period is known as gang age.

According to Madigan, social development takes place' rapidly. The selfish child of the early period may now behave like a social individual and cooperate with others in his group.

Play and games provide opportunities for social development.

The child learns to compete as wel as to cooperate with others

On the basis of a number of studies pertaining to social and emotional development during later childhood, certain generalisations have been made by K. Lovell.

These generalizations are given follow:

1. At the age of five the child's tendencies are very much controlled and he makes violent emotional outbursts which remain for a short time.

By the age of eleven the child attains greater emotional equilibrium

2. As the child increases in age he is able to establish stable personal relationships with others.

He becomes less aggressive though sometime he fights.

Verbal fight and aggression is more predominant than the physical fight at this stage.

3. When the child goes to school he develops friendships with his peers and classmates.

Though the parents are still important for the child he begins to develop social relationships outside his family circle.

He also begins to trust his teachers and receives guidance from them.

4. At the age of about five or six, children still play in small groups. By the age of eight years their play groups become somewhat formal. Nevertheless these play groups are loosely knit and confined to one sex, i.e., boys and girls do not play together.

5. During this stage children develop interests in team games involving competition and skill.

6. Upto the age of eight years children are mostly subjective in their personal relations. Later on they become more objectiye. In other words, when children of this age group become objective in their personal relationship they begin to admire and appreciate qualities in other children.

7. During later childhood children gradually get rid of their fantasies. They begin to have reality in their plays.

8. There is an increase in diversions of interests and outlooks of bovs and girls at this stage

9. During later childhood, social and emotional development is marked by their friendliness, energy and play activities.

10. During later childhood, certain types of fears and anxieties also appear. These fears and anxieties are due to mysterious phenomena such as ghosts and corpses. This is the finding of Jersild and his colleagues

11. Jersild and his colleagues also found that another significant cause of fears among children was animals. Fear of animals usually developed by adults

12. In another study of 1,100 American children Jersild found that 53% of them worried about their passing the examination. Other studies have also suggested that children of eleven and twelve years in age are generally anxious about their school progress.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN LATE CHILDHOOD

According to Piaget, after the age of seven the child enters the period of concrete operations. At the age of about eleven or twelve the child begins his formal operations. It should be noted here that Piaget uses the term 'operation'.

According to him, "An operation is a cognitive act which is part of some pattern of acts. It may be seen in adding, subtracting, or in placing an object in a class, a quantity, time or-space."

By concrete operations is meant that the child is able to develop concepts pertaining to the size and shape of objects.

In other words, during concrete operations the child is able to understand that a change in the form of an object does not necessarily lead to change in its content.

The concrete operation is illustrated by the following experiment:

The child is shown first two balls of clay equal in size. He is asked to flatten one of them and then he is asked to tell which of the two objects have more clay in it. Piaget found that most of S or 6 years old children believed that a change in form produced a change in amount also. But older children were not misled by change in form.

It is evident from the above experiment that when the child uses concrete objects this is known as concrete operation. According to Robert Watson,..“the child uses operations but only for the manipulation of object, that is, concretely."

In the cognitive development concrete operations are followed by formal operations.

The period of formal operations, according to Piaget is between eleven and fifteen years "Concrete operations are first-degree operation; formal operations are second-degree and use first-degree operations, treating them not as realities but as conditions i representational thoughts." Formal operations help the child in understanding rules. It may be remembered that the child does not use formal operations consciously. Nevertheless he gradually learns logical rules.